Welcome to Bountiful Heirlooms:
I have always been a hobby person. I thought that I would document my hobbies -- quilting, decorative painting, cross stitching -- through a blog. I am also a teacher by nature, so I'll be sharing tips, tricks, tutorials and more.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A Couple Stitching Projects

I have a triple batch of Bolognese sauce simmering on the stove – 3 more hours to go before I can let it cool and put in the fridge. The sauce works well on spaghetti, but I’ll be assembling lasagna Bolognese al forno on Thursday for a family get-together at my brother’s ranch this weekend. All of the baby animals are being born. He’s got about 25 new calves, 3 lambs, 5 kittens and 12 piglets.

My tried-and-true, authentic lasagna recipe doesn’t use ricotta, but instead uses béchamel cream sauce, along with parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, ham dices, lasagna noodles and the Bolognese sauce. I use the Barilla no-boil noodles – which are easier to use than the typical thick, wavy lasagna noodles; they are much thinner like fresh pasta so I can make a lasagna with many more layers. It will need to feed 13 people on Friday night. So yummy!

Sorry, I didn’t think about taking photos while I was making the sauce. But, here’s a photo of the cross stitching project I worked on while travelling to Philadelphia last week. I mixed “Wisper” floss with the off-white floss for the sheep – so it is thicker and a bit fuzzy from the mohair in the Wisper.

This next project will probably only be of interest to any LDS stitchers who visit my blog.

I designed it to commemorate the 200th birthday of Joseph Smith, but after I started stitching it, I wasn’t liking all of my floss color choices. But, I bit the bullet and decided to finish it – even though I’ll most likely re-stitch it with some color switches. I don’t like the light blue alphabet or the pink used in the little blossoms and some of the numbers. I will also use a softer gold for the beehives and house roof.

Plus, after I started the outline lettering with black, I decided it was too harsh – and so switched to dark brown. But I never frogged the black stitching – so although it’s done, I’m only moderately happy with the result.

I designed the Joseph Smith sampler to fit in the top of the Old Colonial burl wood box used for Jeannette Douglas’ Stitching Treasures. Before I invest in the fairly expensive box, I definitely need to re-stitch my project. Actually, I should get the box and make sure my floss selections match the box!

I also noticed that I forgot the letter “W” when I did the alphabet – so I need to do some minor redesign to fit it in (although I don’t think anyone would notice unless they were stitching it themself.)

Carol E in AZ: I couldn't find your e-mail address to respond directly to you, so hopefully you'll see this response. Thanks for the nice comments. Yes, he JS sampler is my own design. I've designed a few projects -- and now I know why designers have stitchers do the models for them. It's quick to design, but slower to stitch. Plus, once it's stitched and you do the fine-tuning of colors (if needed -- and in my case it's needed), you want to move on to something else. Thanks for visiting!

Hi NancyI love, love your work!! Beautiful sampler.Tell me more about the box, I'm not familiar with it.And, girl, I so want to be in your family, you cook too!! I'm Italian, kind of old school about the food, and your lasagna sounds scrumpdiliuptious!! I have no idea how to spell that!Linda